It is conventional to transport to a work or recreational site motored vehicles such as all terrain vehicles, garden tractors and mowers, golf carts, snowmobiles, etc., upon a vehicular transport such as trucks fitted with beds, trailers, carriages, and the like. The current practice is typified by the transporting of snowmobiles upon trailers to and from a snowmobiling recreational site. Although the transport of snowmobiles has been popular for several decades, little, if any, advances have been made in the manner snowmobiles are loaded and secured onto the transporting vehicle.
The most common procedure for loading a snowmobile onto a transporting trailer involves driving the snowmobile onto the trailer, stopping the snowmobile and then latching or securing a snowmobile onto the transport. Transporting trailers are often equipped with ramps which permit the snowmobile to be ramped onto the trailer bed without inclining or declining the bed. Frequently, the trailer beds are pivotally mounted so that the bed serves as a ramp. The pivotally mounted trailers are typically weighted so as to remain at an inclined ramping position until counter-balanced by the snowmobile weight which pivotally returns the bed to a horizontal position. With trailers equipped to haul two or more snowmobiles, the bed must be placed onto a horizontal position after each snowmobile loading in order to secure the snowmobile thereto, with this sequence being necessarily repeated for each snowmobile which is loaded onto the trailer. Irrespective of whether the trailer bed is inclined or ramped for loading the snowmobile thereupon, the snowmobile and bed are thus typically placed or returned to a horizontal position in order to secure the snowmobile thereto.
Serious injury and damage to persons and property have arisen in accidents occurring during the loading and unloading of snowmobiles onto trailers or other transporting vehicles. Snowmobiles have overshot the loading bed causing serious injury and damage to both the person and property. Injury and damage often arises by sliding backwards or sideways off an icy or slippery trailer which tends to arise after the power has been reduced or stopped during the loading operation. Such injury and damage could be substantially curtailed if it were possible to latch and immobilize the snowmobile while the snowmobile remains under motorized power.